


knock down drag out

by Senri



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26114917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Senri/pseuds/Senri
Summary: After returning from the mission to reclaim Wall Maria, Levi and Hange have the fight they need to have.
Relationships: Levi Ackerman & Hange Zoë
Comments: 8
Kudos: 13





	knock down drag out

On the wall across from the foot of Hange’s bed, over her desk, a bare patch gleamed: the whitewash a shade brighter than the wall surrounding. For six years he had known Hange and that rectangle of wall had never been without its map of human and occupied territory, lit and becoming slightly more faded with each morning as sunlight washed it out. The map had been removed in that time, modified, of course; Hange had taken it down and crossed out the gate in Trost District, marking that exist impassable, and before that, shaded in the area between Walls Maria and Rose with red, penciling in several figures of titans on the move “for flavor!” as well.

Now the wall was bare, and below the bare patch, on Hange’s desk, the map had been screwed into a lump of paper. No doubt it would be crumbled, torn, and hardly legible if he tried to rescue it and smooth it out. Typical of Hange - so fucking messy - not to throw it away.

Morning light snuck in through the window, pale gold light sliding across the floor, spilling on the wall. The first night Hange had spent in her rooms since their return from Wall Maria, and the last night she’d spend in these rooms, if she moved into the Commander’s quarters today. Her rooms were obsolete and so was that map. Wall Maria belonged to humanity again, and the map would have to change to fit a world bigger and more dangerous than even Erwin had guessed.

“Are you lost, Levi? Did you get lost on your way to the toilets? Is that why you’re in my room?”

No point in putting off the battle, Levi turned from the wall and bent full attention on Hange. His longtime comrade in arms, sometimes friend. With hair rumpled and greasy, one remaining eye bleary, Hange gazed back with a lack of expression as chilly as a glare. Even in the awful tatty nightgown she wore, with its ruffles, its actual sprays of ratty lace at the wrists, resting reclined on a whole raft of pillows, even with the gauze pad over the missing eye and the wrapping to keep it in place, she looked like a downed hawk: an injured predator, still dangerous, densifying the air with its presence. A fire brought into an enclosed space.

The fourteenth commander of the scouts looked upon her second. Levi set the wicker basket he’d carried on Hange’s bed, in the area of her lap, and saluted. One hand over the heart, one tucked behind the back, tension inherent in the form. “You look like an old granny,” he told her.

“I feel like a corpse too!” The return too cheerful.

He went and dragged over the old ladder-back chair from Hange’s desk. The seat was smooth and shiny, polished by Hange’s butt over years of serving as Section Commander, used almost to death, like both of them.

Levi sat by her bedside. In the meantime, Hange had not unfolded the bundle in the basket. She sat back instead, arms folded, eagle-eye drilling on him. Hesitating would be an error: he was called humanity’s strongest but Hange had a way of going straight for the face when called to.

“I was going to take you out, but I figured since you’re an invalid and still stink of the hospital, I’d spare the civs.”

“Bold! Bold to assume I’d want to go anywhere with you right now. I’m afraid if I went with you, you’d finagle me another promotion. Military secretary, what if I develop a fetish for feeding people their own feces like someone I won’t name? What if you crown me king? Historia would probably thank you.”

Levi flipped over the linen wrapping to reveal his first peace offering: two sticky buns still with a ghost of warmth to them. “Eat. You’ll need your strength.”

“ _You_ need my strength.” Hange looked away. Levi took a bite of his bun. Warm, gooey, insubstantial, the baker near enough to HQ for scouts to take advantage of the first pastries of the day could do fucked-up things with dough.

“Erwin used to love these. I’d catch him licking his fingers instead of using his handkerchief.”

If things were good Hange would’ve cracked a joke, _you didn’t slice his fingers off? You’d still be seen in public with him?_ Instead she leaned back on her pillows and closed her eye. Hange had raided that bakery more than once, buying treats for Fourth Squad after long nights of crunch time. 

“We do need your strength,” Levi admitted. Tactical display of throat. “Commander.”

Hange’s face twitched like a needle pricked her. Glasses off, he could see the wet shine of eye. “You’ve made the biggest mistake of your life.” Hange sat forward, off the pillows, folding her legs criss-cross. Levi rescued the basket from tumbling; Hange stood up on her bed, scarred knees flashing under her nightgown, and leapt to the floor with a huge thud. “You put your heart over what was best for humanity. Thoughtless, heedless of what we need -”

“Erwin chose you!” Levi stood and pivoted away, putting his basket and his bun down on Hange’s desk, completing the turn so he faced Hange, an opponent of superior height but already injured. “Erwin chose you to lead us for the uprising, and now. He had faith in you for this -”

“Wrong, wrong!” Hange carried on over him, stalking forward and aiming a quick knee strike. Too far, a feint. “A choice in error, _wrong_ , try again!”

“You did lead us!” he returned. “You made correct decisions and we won.”

Hange was still coming at him. He did not believe she really wanted to fight and stood his ground, even when she shoved him backwards, he stumbled with the push, and Hange shoved him back again until he hit the wall next to her desk.

“Well Erwin didn’t know what was in that basement, did he?” Hange snarled into his face. “He didn’t know what we’d learn!”

“Do you think I don’t wish he was alive? That I don’t want his orders now - ”

“This was YOUR decision! YOU gave Armin the serum!” Hange shouted. “It’s too late for regrets now! Why would you do that, then come to me, like YOU didn’t make that choice?”

“ _He told me to do it, Hange,_ ” Levi spit back. “It was what he wanted. He made that clear to me. His last order.”

They stood close, chest to chest, breathing deeply. The room felt too hot.

Hange was Commander now. “We can’t fight like this,” Levi said.

“We can’t fight like this in _public._ ” It was an improvement that Hange’s mean tone became more sarcastic. She stood on him, looking down on him, using all the head’s worth of height she had on him, fists clenched by her side. “How could you do this to me?”

“You’re the best alternative we’ve got, Hange.” He had to say it. Hange would pin him down if he softened it. The alternative: not the best. Hange turned away from him, made her way over to her window and stared down at the yard below.

“You made the wrong decision, Levi. No matter what Erwin said - you should have given him the serum.”

“We’d have lost the brats. Eren and Mikasa would never have forgiven us.”

“They’d have understood. They’d have come around. They’re soldiers… Mikasa was accepting the idea… I could tell...”

Hange stared out. Levi stepped around her desk, examined her face, the eye wet-bright. Was the remaining eye even enough intact to cry? He had no way of knowing.

“What are we going to do?” Hange said to the empty yard. “Erwin would have known what to do with this. He’d have charted a path for us… they called him a demon… and now they’ll know me as the demoness, too…”

His own throat hurt, his chest felt tight. They’d traveled to ruined Shiganshina in one night, battled the day away, retreated to the wall for the evening to recoup, rest, lick their wounds, and wait for dark make the return trip before they got any weaker. The trip had shown them a dazzling display of stars, glittering fit to put any Sina lady’s jewelry collection to shame, and the knowledge that Erwin did not walk at their head had been a gut-punch sinking in with each step, more and more real as they went. 

Hange would ask those two kids to give up the comrade who’d been with them since their peaceful world shattered, for the good of humanity, but also for Levi and Hange, and Levi would ask them that too, he wanted Erwin back like he wanted a breath after too long underwater, like he wanted to wipe away the sweat sliding into his eyes on a hot summer day’s training, like he wanted a bath after battle.

“I’m sorry, Hange,” he said, meaning it. Erwin had cushioned both their lives, which were hard enough already: by being the last word, by making the hard decision. It fell to them now.

“History has its eyes on us,” Hange said, gazing out her window like from there she saw through the walls and over the countryside, to the sea, the mainland, all the troubles that waited for them. Responsibility locked around them like tack on a dray horse, like shackles on a convict, like the harness of the tactical gear snugged on a scout. There was no escape.

Levi did not touch her. He had laid the yoke on her neck and now had no right to. They looked out into the happy morning as if it happened in another world, together.

**Author's Note:**

> Hange says that Levi made the decision to give the serum to Armin rather than Erwin and she has nothing more to say about it, but I always felt like they had to put their feelings aside while the mission was running, and they'd need to be addressed later. Hange is pretty harsh in here, but Levi just made a huge decision that has a massive impact on her life unilaterally and I can't imagine that she didn't have some complex feelings about it. Neither one of them is supposed to be strictly in the right or at their best here.


End file.
